Apple
by Miyori999
Summary: It's that time of the year again... Time for the school festival! How fun. Oneshot based on a drawing.


So this story is almost entirely based off of an experience I had while running the Bobbing for Apples booth at my own Middle school event. I forgot about this for a while, it's just been sitting there half finished one my computer for a while. I finished it all tonight with no editing time, so sorry for any errors. I also got the idea to write from my artwork after someone said I should draw from my stories, only with this one I did it in reverse. My original picture is on my profile if you wanna check it out. It's the dramatized verion of a scene from this story.

Rumiko Takahashi owns all things awesome.

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><p><strong>Apple <strong>

It was that time of the year again. It was the time in which all of the classes from Sakura's school would organize a festival by picking from various themes suggested by classmates. Sakura's class had decided on a carnival theme, with carnival games with prizes. There would be a ring toss, bottle knockdown, and various other fun games as well as a carnival themed snack bar in which Sakura, Miho, and Rika had taken charge of. Tsubasa Jumonji had quickly called dibs on the dunk tank, as soon as he learned the layout for the booths; the dunk tank sat directly across from the snack bar. However, he soon regretted this quick decision when he noticed a menacing glimmer in Rokudo's eye at learning booth supervisors got a free throw. Rokudo had a good arm and Jumonji was well aware of that fact.

Rokudo had half-heartedly agreed to supervise the goldfish catch. As it turned out, the school would not allow any games that might harm animals, so the goldfish catch had been changed out for bobbing for apples. Rinne sighed when he learned this. He knew not too many kids would be willing to risk getting wet, especially considering most had not yet changed out of their school uniforms.

Those brave students were rare; the red-haired boy's main priority was to stay awake although he was dying of boredom. The girl who was supposed to take first shift had failed to show, and Rinne doubted she would relieve him halfway 1)*. This left Rinne sitting there, comatose, for three hours instead of one and a half. He resorted to resting his elbow on the table and using his hand to keep his head up, while he boredly waved the "bobbing for apples" sign with his other hand. _Sitting upright meant you looked awake right?_

_/_

2)*Tsubasa Jumonji had better luck staying awake. So far, he had stayed dry, but literally every minute or so someone made an attempt to send him into the drink. None of whom had been successful (obviously) most of the baseballs were thrown by blushing girls who just wanted to see _any_ guy soaked and absolutely dripping wet. Though, it did help business that Tsubasa had the looks to be confident about. In fact, sitting on that platform, nearly done with his one and a half-hour shift, made Tsubasa confident about more than just his looks… cocky really, and that cockiness would be his downfall.

When he was not staring over at Sakura's booth, he sat there purposely aggravating people - egging them on. Purposely trying to make them miss, and get them to spend more money on balls. He would wave back at himself, "C'mon, throw the ball already!" and "oh, you throw like a six year old!"

A second year - one of the few guys - had finally become fed up with Jumonji's enthusiasm towards playing this role. "Oh, come on kid, you needn't be that rude!"

Jumonji cocked his head to the side "I bet you're just saying that 'cuz you can't aim, huh?"

"The Hell I can- Respect your elders!" He threw the ball one last time, but still missed the target. He growled.

"I'm going to get my sister!" he snarled as he walked away.

"You need a girl to hit the target for you," he chuckled; he really had gotten quite carried away.

A few minutes later, the boy returned with an absolutely tiny girl in tow. She looked like an elementary student and her form was not imposing at all, itty-bitty body clad in a pink and purple plaid dress, but her face and spiky black hair made her instantly recognizable as third year Ryoko Sekai, the only girl on the baseball team and the school's star pitcher. Which made the boy her little brother, Shuuichi Sekai.

She slapped her money on the table, which gave her three baseballs to throw. Her little brother nodded and she beamed the first ball directly at Tsubasa's head.

"Oops, did I miss the target?" she scoffed in a rather sarcastic tone.

Jumonji had just barely dodged that ball, but failed to dodge the second ball which hit him square in the chest at 115 kilometres per hour.

"What the heck do you think you're-" he started before the third ball was thrown, sending the Christian boy into the tank.

He came up coughing. He wanted to glare at the siblings, but he now knew he had that one coming. He got back up on the platform and stripped off his cross-adorned black shirt to wring it out. Of course, the moment he did so a group of guys hooted jokingly, inadvertently alerting an elderly teacher to his mild state of undress.

"Jumonji! Put your shirt back on!" he hollered at the boy.

He got one more good wring out of his shirt and put it back on, and his booth partner alerted him to the fact second shift had made their appearance.

Jumonji hopped down from the platform, grabbed his oversized towel and wrapped it around himself. He then put all his jewellery on and proceeded over to the snack bar, where Sakura was supposed to be.

/

A Christian boy came towards the bobbing for apples booth, stomping as if Rokudo had something to do with his damp appearance with a towel thrown over his shoulder. '_Nope' _Rokudo thought, _he definitely does not look happy. _He also wondered what time it was, he was sure it was close to time to start packing up.

"Has Mamiya-san been through here?"

"Looking for her Jumonji?" Rinne asked smirking on the inside, while really only raising his eyebrows a little.

"Rokudo… **why else **would I ask?"

"Why would I know?" He shrugged.

Tsubasa rolled his eyes, "Well, have you seen her?"

"Hn? Why are you looking for her?"

"Stop answering my questions with questions…"

"I don't…oh…"

It was 'a speak of the devil' sort of situation, Sakura appeared behind Tsubasa, and inquired about hearing her name. Miho had volunteered to take Rika home, who had discovered an avocado allergy she did not know she had.

Then, yet another person accumulated at the station. Rinne looked over at the man - Phys Ed teacher Suzuki sensei - standing there with his arms crossed, and wondered exactly what he was doing.

"Going pretty slow huh?" Suzuki asked the first year student.

Rokudo did not say a word, but it was an expectable response for Suzuki.

"I heard Norita-san didn't take her shift, so you're probably really bored by now right?" he smiled at the boy. "Why don't you go enjoy the rest of the night eh? I'll pack this station up for you… have you given it a try yet?"

"No… I figured it would seem pretty suspicious if I got a better time or something."

"Well come on, everyone can get a chance. Jumonji?"

Tsubasa grimaced. "No thanks. I'm still soggy."

Suzuki nodded to Rinne, and the boy shrugged in reply.

"You do know the prize is a 1,000 yen coupon for Whackdonalds right? For the one with the fastest time."

Rokudo lit up a bit. He did not know that was the prize, certainly something worth being called back for at the end of the night.

He put his hands on either side or the water tub, Suzuki held up the timer and nodded and Rokudo plunged his head into the water. He bit the first apple he found, pinning it against the side of the tub and quickly emerged with the apple in his teeth. Suzuki clicked the timer. He nodded. "Wow, Rokudo, that was pretty good, in fact…" he read over the short list of names Rokudo had been keeping throughout the night. "That was the quickest time, 2.7 seconds."

Sakura clapped and congratulated Rinne for the quick time. Now that his hair was wet, it looked a shade darker than usual, almost a vermillion color. The darkness of his bangs over his face were now contrasting with his scarlet eyes, making them really stand out, and making it easy to see them perk up with Sakura's congratulations.

Jumonji rolled his eyes. "Oh, please, even I can do better than that," he scoffed.

Rinne took a bite out of his apple, but raised his eyebrows at Tsubasa's comment. The Christian boy caught this small gesture and glared at the redhead who had given it.

"You don't think I can? Time me Suzuki-sensei." Suzuki readied the timer and Jumonji ardently snatched an apple from tub, grabbing it by the extra-long stem. He immediately glared at Rinne rather than looking at Suzuki for his time. The boy was running his hand through his wet hair squeezing out as much water as he could; Rokudo had dunked his whole head in, while Tsubasa had only gotten the tips of his hair wet.

"Wow, Jumonji, it looks like you've got the prize. Your time was 1.4 seconds."

Rinne looked up from the bored tossing of his hair back over to the Christian boy. His eyes widened fractionally. Tsubasa took the apple out of his mouth and smiled at Rokudo with the competitiveness of a boy fighting over a girl. And in reality, that's what this little thing had been about. Tsubasa had become a tad jealous of the praise Sakura was giving Rokudo. The scarlet-eyed boy turned away, and looked down at his apple. _'That was stupid,' _he thought to himself. If he had gone for the stem like Tsubasa, he could have saved this apple for later, but he had instead put teeth marks in it, and had then taken a bite out of it. He heard the prize and did not think of anything else. _'What really were my chances anyway?'_ He looked sadly at the apple. With the bite removed from it, the apple looked like the boy felt. Sakura was congratulating Tsubasa now as he could hear and he thought that Sakura might actually have done that for him just because he was a closer friend. Turns out, she is just a sweet girl, willing to praise anyone who deserves it.

A morose feeling crept over Jumonji when he glanced back over at Rokudo. The melancholy that had darkened over Rinne's expression was beginning to disturb Tsubasa. _'Why's this guy so bummed out after losing at one game?' _he thought, before considering his next action.

"Hey, Sakura, after the choir concert you wanna head over to Whackdonalds?" he asked.

"Uh… sure I guess."

And just when he could have been a jerk, as was tonight's theme for him, he called over to Rinne; he had enough of that (jerkiness) for the next week or so. He had been raised to avoid that kind of behavior.

"Rokudo, you too, come to Whackdonalds after the choir concert? I'm buying," he asked waving the yellow coupon.

Rokudo snapped back into his blasé expression and shrugged. "Sure."

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><p><strong>Author's Notes<strong>

1)*: I too, ran the Bobbing for apples booth, and my partner Never came to relieve me of my duty. I too, sat there bored, I couldn't even enjoy myself until the very end, with about 10 minutes until pack up, when my own PE Teacher asked why I was still there and decided to run the booth for me. He was a nice guy, I wish I could remember his name, we all called him Mr. Islandhead, for, obvious baldness-related reasons.

2)*: We had a dunk tank too, only it was the music teacher getting dunked. All the girls said he was hott (He was about 26-27), but I never saw him as anything but Mr. PurpleDragonMonster, or a _teacher_. When he got mad he turned purple and you swore he would start breathing fire. He was cool, but you didn't want to get him angry.


End file.
